WHAT'S NEW IN FLOWERS

By Lisa H. Towle; Lisa H. Towle is a business writer who lives in New Jersey.

Published: December 20, 1987

SUSAN OVERTON, manager of Ana's flower shop in Riverside, Calif., calls the year-end holidays the ''big profit time of year.'' Chuck Alexander, owner of eight Alexander's Flowers shops around Cleveland, relies on the period after Thanksgiving for 35 percent of sales. A member of the Florists' Transworld Delivery Association, Mr. Alexander does a high-volume business with the prepackaged F.T.D. bouquets - holiday basket and fireside basket arrangements, for example. He generally sells more than 1,400 such offerings each December.

Groups like F.T.D., a member cooperative consisting of more than 24,000 retail florists' shops on three continents, and Teleflora, a privately owned flowers-by-wire service, have carefully nurtured a host of flower-giving occasions, some of them as traditional as Christmas and Hanukkah, others - like Secretaries Week and Bosses Day - carefully promoted. These efforts have paid off. In 1986, FTD handled $626 million flowers-by-wire orders, up from $282.4 million worth of orders in 1977.

The retail flower industry, estimated at $7 billion this year, has been expanding about 7 percent annually. One reason is broader distribution: Inexpensive fresh flowers are now widely available in supermarkets, where they command relatively high profit margins. According to Progressive Grocer, 62 percent of big supermarket chains (those with 11 or more locations) stock flowers.

The Kroger Company, in fact, says it is the largest retail florist in the country, if not the world. In 1987, the chain, which has floral shops in 825 of its 1,100 food stores, will record $100 million in flower sales.

Aggressive marketing also plays a major part in the industry's growth. The unlikely hiring of former football star turned actor Merlin Olsen as a spokesman for F.T.D., for example, was widely considered a marketing coup. The clear message: Men are free to buy, receive and openly enjoy flowers.

The easy availability of cut-flower imports has also fed the sales rise. ''Twenty years ago I carried six or seven different types of flowers,'' said George Sampson, owner of Manhattan's Marion Champol Flowers. ''Now I have 30 or 40 different flowers in stock. Imports have made virtually all types of flowers available year round.''

According to 1985 Commerce Department figures, 68 countries sent cut flowers to this country with a customs value of approximately $221 million. Colombia is the top supplier, but Peru, the Netherlands, Israel and Mexico also contribute to the flow of lilies, daisies and other blooms.

Getting all those flowers into homes, offices and hospital rooms has proved a challenge. Despite the promotions of F.T.D. and Teleflora, the flower industry remains stubbornly seasonal, with sharp peaks in May, because of Mother's Day, and December. Mr. Alexander, the Cleveland florist, is so busy at year-end that he must hire extra help - usually college students home for the holidays. Only half joking, he said, ''I believe that in my shops, over Christmas time, we have represented almost every college on the East Coast.''